How to disable automatic update installation in Windows 10

Detailed instructions on how to disable Windows automatic updates in Windows 10 (version 1709) while maintaining the ability to manually install security updates for the system.

Users of Windows 10 are not able to control the installation of system updates. To disable the automatic installation and activate the installation of updates manually, you must perform a number of simple manipulations. The problem is especially urgent for users of Windows 10 Home, devoid of the Group Policy editor.

The main way to restore control over updates is to disable the Windows Update service and enable it only when needed, when you need to install certain updates manually.

There is one more option, when manual checking and installation of updates will not be affected, and the automatic installation will be disabled.

Learn more about how to turn off updates.

The user will need to change the permissions of the program responsible for checking for updates. Changes can be reset, but it is recommended that you first create a backup of the system partition.

In Windows 10, there is a task that uses the C: \ Windows \ System32 \ UsoClient.exe application to manually or automatically check for updates.

The job is available in the Task Scheduler under the Job Scheduler Library> Microsoft> Windows> UpdateOrchestrator> Schedule Scan.

The job has several triggers: one of them is run once a day, the other is triggered by event 8202, the third trigger is user triggered.

To disable check for updates, you need to remove all permissions of the UsoClient.exe file (as indicated in the instructions below). In this case, a failure will occur when checking for an update triggered by triggers.

Please note that this change will not affect the updates of Windows Defender antivirus signatures, because they will still be downloaded and installed automatically.

Windows 10 update disable

Note. After applying this method, updates will be downloaded to the computer, but will not be able to be installed in the automatic mode.

Click on the Windows key and type cmd.exe. Right-click Command Prompt and select the option “Run as administrator” in the context menu. Confirm the UAC prompt.
Run the command takeown /f “%WINDIR%\System32\UsoClient.exe” /a – this command assigns the file to the administrator group, which gives full control over the files.
Now run icacls “%WINDIR%\System32\UsoClient.exe” /inheritance:r /remove “Administrators” “Authenticated Users” “Users” “SYSTEM” – this command removes permissions for selected user groups. It is only suitable for Russian-language versions of Windows 10.
Restart the computer to apply the changes.
You should receive a message about the successful processing of 1 file, but you can also manually verify that all permissions have been removed. Right-click C:\Windows\System32\UsoClient.exe, select “Properties” from the shortcut menu, and then click the “Security” tab.

The next time that triggers are triggered to install updates in Windows 10, you should receive the “Access Denied” error message in the results of the last run in the UpdateOrchestrator task list.

You can still start checking for updates manually by opening Options> Upgrade and Security.

Restore permissions

You can restore the file permissions at any time:

Open a command prompt with administrator rights as described above.
Run the command icacls “%WINDIR%\System32\UsoClient.exe” /reset
This command resets all UsoClient.exe permissions, after which the automatic update will work again.